


mamihlapinatapai

by jayelll



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Byun Baekhyun, ChanBaek - Freeform, Crushes, Cute, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Skinny Dipping, Top Park Chanyeol, Unrequited Love, baekchan, chanyeol is an oblivious bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:09:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25224409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayelll/pseuds/jayelll
Summary: Mamihlapinatapai: the sensation of two people looking at eachother, each hoping the other will initiate the thing they both desire but are equally unwilling to do.orBaekhyun falls in love early on, fast and hard. Chanyeol is slow, and doesn't catch on.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 4
Kudos: 71





	mamihlapinatapai

**Author's Note:**

> i posted this about a year ago and then took it down for personal reasons, but it's finally back! i must say, re-reading it after all this time, this is still one of the best things i ever wrote. i get chills at some points. it's funny saying that about my own writing but it's true. i'm a sucker for soft chanbaek and annoying ass tropes so here u go hope you like it (:

**Mamihlapinatapai**

Definition: the sensation of two people looking at eachother, each hoping the other will initiate the thing they both desire but are equally unwilling to do.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The first time it happened, Baekhyun was fifteen and oblivious. 

Lying on the hard floor atop a rigid mattress next to Chanyeol in the darkness, their faces too close and his breath too warm, he felt a strange sense of feeling wash over them.

If he had the nerve he would have kissed Chanyeol then, right then. But he didn’t have the nerve, and despite the look in Chanyeol’s eyes which couldn’t have been mistaken for anything other than the same, neither did he. 

They, didn’t kiss. Baekhyun rolled over on the rigid mattress on the floor in the dark and fell asleep.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Baekhyun liked books. Chanyeol preferred movies. While Baekhyun lounged on the floor for hours, enveloped in a new favourite book and picking out all the words that sounded nice on his tongue, Chanyeol would curl on the sofa and engage himself in a movie he had watched a million times but still found interest in. The room would be quiet save the sound of paper rubbing against paper as a page would turn every few minutes, or the comfortable buzz of Chanyeol’s earbuds, echoing through the quietness. 

In the end, they would lie on the floor side by side and Baekhyun would introduce his new words to Chanyeol, going into great detail to define them in a way so that Chanyeol would find the same joy in them that he did. 

In turn, Chanyeol shared tales from his beloved movies, or the soundtracks from his favourite scenes, and sometimes even forced Baekhyun into sitting with him and watching them all over again. Baekhyun really didn’t mind, because if Chanyeol liked them then they must be at least halfway decent. After all, in the end it was always back to Baekhyun with his books and Chanyeol with his movies.

They were different in this way, but Baekhyun liked to think opposites attracted.

Chanyeol was tall and bold, Baekhyun was petite and bashful. He was artsy, Chanyeol preferred academics. Chanyeol hated vegetables, Baekhyun always ate all of them for him. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Baekhyun and Chanyeol met in elementary school: nothing more than happy, awkward kids, with sun-kissed skin and not a care in the world, who both insisted on fighting over the smallest things because they were equally too petty to admit they really  _ didn’t _ hate eachother as much as they said they did.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol became best friends in middle school, when Baekhyun helped him cheat on a test for the first time to save his grade last minute. Chanyeol’s pride was broken for the first time then, too. He rather liked it. He shared his lunch with Baekhyun on a Thursday afternoon when Baekhyun had forgotten to bring his own. They bit off the heads of animal crackers and laughed because Chanyeol’s mom packed broccoli in his lunchbox and he didn’t want to eat it but Baekhyun insisted that he needed to because it was healthy. (Baekhyun ate all the broccoli in the end.)

Baekhyun and Chanyeol fell in love in highschool. Not, with eachother. Chanyeol fell in love with the pretty girl from his social sciences class. Baekhyun fell in love with Chanyeol. He didn’t know it then—all he knew was that he hated the pretty girl from social sciences class.

“You aren’t in love,” he demanded of Chanyeol as they lay on the floor again. “You hardly know her.” 

“You’re just jealous,” Chanyeol told him angrily.

It was their first fight since elementary school. Baekhyun didn’t talk to Chanyeol for a week. He moped around the skateboard park instead of hanging out on the floor reading books at Chanyeol’s house and wished he had learned how to skate. After that week Chanyeol stood at Baekhyun’s open window and threw paper airplanes that had apologies written on them all. None of them made the open window but Baekhyun forgave him.

Pretty girl from social sciences class broke up with Chanyeol on the day of highschool prom. Baekhyun hated her for making Chanyeol cry. He invited Chanyeol to sleep over that night, and one movie and back massage later Chanyeol felt better. 

They went to sleep after that, on a rigid mattress in the darkness of Baekhyun’s room.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The first time it happened, Baekhyun was fifteen and far too oblivious to realise how much he was in love. The mattress was uncomfortable and the room was too cold, but he was close enough to feel Chanyeol’s body warmth. He had rolled onto his side to face him and found Chanyeol already lying similarly. They stayed like that for a while, face to face, making Baekhyun feel warm all over. Chanyeol reached up to poke a piece of hair out of Baekhyun’s face and his fingers were soft and cool. 

“Thank you for putting up with my ass.”

Baekhyun smiled and noted the way Chanyeol’s eyes were bright.

“Are you still sad?”

Chanyeol shook his head. “I’m with you, how could I be?”

Baekhyun didn’t have an explanation for the way his heart stuttered. He didn’t have an explanation for the warmth in his cheeks or the trembling of his fingers. Him and Chanyeol lay for an eternity, just staring at eachother, and suddenly he realised how easily he could kiss Chanyeol right now, how easily he wanted to. In Chanyeol’s face his thoughts were echoed. Maybe if he was Baekhyun the Brave he would have leaned in and done it, or if he were Baekhyun the Bold he would have pulled Chanyeol towards him and done it. But he was just Baekhyun. Baekhyun with a trembling heart and trembling fingers and a boy who was heartbroken over a stupid girl.

He didn’t kiss Chanyeol that night. Instead he rolled over and pulled the covers up around his ears and fell asleep with his feet tangled between larger, warmer ones. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Chanyeol.”

Baekhyun lay on the floor again, prying attention from Chanyeol’s concentration as a book balanced between his knees. 

“Chanyeol, what’s ‘enraptured’?”

Chanyeol paused his movie and thought long and hard about that one. “Beautiful?” 

The summer sun shone through the window between the blinds, across the pages of Baekhyun’s book and across Chanyeol’s face in streaks, and Baekhyun suddenly felt very alive.

“It’s like, the feeling you get when someone is beautiful.”

And Baekhyun’s thirteen-year-old self accepted the answer with the benefit of the doubt. He liked that. He watched Chanyeol roll over and turn the film back on.

He was enraptured.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The second time it happened Baekhyun had turned eighteen and was very much in love.

It was the summer they graduated highschool; humid and happy. Baekhyun and Chanyeol were older now—they had grown out of their childish antics and didn’t have time for movies on the sofa or books on the rug. They still spent time together, usually lounging around Kyungsoo’s house during the day and sneaking into eachothers’ windows to spend nights when parents weren’t around. That humid summer would be one of the best of Baekhyun’s life. Every moment was spent wrapped around Chanyeol’s finger.

Everything little thing Chanyeol did enraptured him. Chanyeol made his heart pound and his fingers tremble and his insides quiver. Chanyeol filled him with anticipation. Chanyeol made him want things he had never wanted before. 

Baekhyun was very in love. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Baekhyun sat up on the counter facing Chanyeol’s seat in Kyungsoo’s kitchen. His feet rested against Chanyeol’s thighs and the latter massaged his kneecaps absently with the tips of his thumbs. 

It was a Monday evening in early May and the air was sticky and warm and honey-coloured, in a way Baekhyun could almost melt into it. Chanyeol smelled like cinnamon, his hands were large and comforting and he wanted Chanyeol to melt with him, into the moment, just them.

“So he broke up with me.” Kyungsoo sat across the kitchen from them with his face in his hands. His feet dangled from the stool because he wasn’t tall and his legs weren’t long enough to reach the ground. Baekhyun frowned because he could relate.

“Soo, it’s the third time this month.”

“I know,” he cried. “But all the other times it was  _ me _ who broke up with  _ him _ . This time it’s serious.”

“You said it was serious last time, too.”

“It was!” Kyungsoo looked up with an expression that was hurt. “It’s just that this time it’s  _ more _ serious.”

Baekhyun leaned forward a bit towards the edge of the counter and Chanyeol glanced up at him before letting his hands drop away from his knees. 

Baekhyun pouted.  _ Put them back,  _ he mouthed,  _ it was nice. _

Chanyeol poked his tongue out,  _ No _ .

_ Meanie.  _

Chanyeol put his hands back on Baekhyun’s legs and his thumbs massaged the skin again, slow. Baekhyun prided himself in triumph. “Tell me again why he broke up with you.”

Kyungsoo spun his stool in a slow circle and waited for it to go all the way around. “I put his favourite shirt in the dryer again and it shrunk,” he said. “And then I yelled at him and blamed him for always putting it in the wash without reminding me, and he told me to stop blaming him for everything, and I told him maybe we should break up, and he said okay and then he left and I screamed after him that he was being an asshole.”

Chanyeol frowed. 

A door opened and slammed in room next door and Jongdae’s cheery face appeared in the kitchen moments later, causing an abrupt lull in conversation.

“Kyungsoo, I mean, this is,  _ your _ fault,” Chanyeol told him. Chanyeol was bold and blunt and unsympathetic. He was always that way. Baekhyun adored him.

“I know,” Kyungsoo squeaked, ashamed. His face went back into his hands.

Baekhyun slid off the counter and slumped onto the seat next to Chanyeol. Their eyes met for a brief second and then Baekhyun turned his attention to Jongdae.

Jongdae had come to make plans for Baekhyun’s eighteenth birthday party. Of course, Baekhyun would insist that he didn’t want anything elaborate, but he was becoming an  _ adult  _ and that automatically meant he qualified for a party and gifts and cake and everything that came with birthdays and festivities. Jongdae insisted.

And sitting in Kyungsoo’s kitchen on that warm honey evening with every happiness he could have ever wanted, Baekhyun really, really loved his friends. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


The second time it happened, Baekhyun had just turned eighteen and his house seemed more sullen than usual as his party said goodbye to its final guests, leaving a disaster of decorations behind in his living room. A spare Jongdae lingered in the kitchen some distance away.

Chanyeol had his head against Baekhyun’s shoulder as they sprawled on the sofa and demolished the last of the birthday cake. Baekhyun kept crying that he was too full and  _ I can hardly move _ , but Chanyeol kept coming back to feed him little bites between his fingertips, and among giggles Baekhyun was completely enamored.

Chanyeol hummed _happy birthday_ gently under his breath.

“Can I stay here tonight?” he asked when it got late.

“I think my Mom wouldn’t want you to.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

"I could get in the window."

Baekhyun didn't answer.

Chanyeol shifted to look up at him. Sitting there with frosting on his face, Baekhyun suddenly felt very silly. But Chanyeol was looking at him now and his gut was doing something odd and for the time their eyes were united he had never, never, never wanted so badly to kiss Chanyeol’s pretty lips and touch his pretty face and just keep him there forever. 

"Baek." Chanyeol's hands rested on his shirt. When Baekhyun looked down he realised he was close enough to see the texture of Chanyeol's skin and the lines in his lips. No, he, wasn’t. staring at Chanyeol’s lips. But Chanyeol looked enticing in the dark light of his living room. Baekhyun wanted to kiss him but mostly he just wanted to cry. He looked away. 

Chanyeol went home that night. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Kyungsoo and Jongin made up within 2 days. Suddenly Baekhyun was jealous of them.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“There are two types of people in the world,” Chanyeol told him as they walked down the sidewalk in the middle of October, hands deep in their pockets to keep them from the biting cold. “People who try to step on every leaf on the sidewalk, and people who try not to.”

Baekhyun laughed at him. “That sounds like the anthill dilemma. Y’know, like, anthills in the grass that everyone always steps on accidentally.”

“Only the most cruel beings would step on an anthill on purpose.”

Okay so. Baekhyun wouldn’t tell him that  _ he _ was that child. He strongly suspected this whole thing was supposed to be some crappy metaphor for the meaning of life and optimism vs. pessimism. He didn’t say that; he leaned into Chanyeol’s side instead and shuffled along with his broad strides.  _ The faster you walk the less cold you are,  _ he would say.

“Do you want to get coffee?” Chanyeol asked him when they were halfway home.

They sat at a little window table in the corner and Baekhyun ordered an iced coffee. In the middle of October, Chanyeol wouldn't stop laughing at him. Music that sounded like autumn and the colour orange decorated the background and Baekhyun rather enjoyed the atmosphere of the place. 

“You need a new sweater,” he noted as he fiddled with the sleeve of Chanyeol’s garment, arms meeting halfway across their little table.

“Why? This one is perfectly fine.”

“Yeah but I got it for you years ago.”

“That’s what makes it special,” Chanyeol pouted. 

“It’s ugly. I can buy you a new one.”

“But I like this one.” He took Baekhyun’s straw between his lips and sipped on cold coffee.

Baekhyun laughed with incredulity and buried his face between his arms. “You’re so impossible to deal with.”

“Love you,” Chanyeol offered. The mock heart-eyes were blatant in his voice. 

_ Love you too,  _ Baekhyun didn’t say, because he meant it and because Chanyeol wasn’t into him, not like that.

  
  
  
  
  
  


On the way home, he stepped on every single leaf.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The third time it happened, Baekhyun had decided he needed to either tell Chanyeol how he had been feeling, or get past it. Both were, equally difficult.

In part because he didn’t really know how he felt himself. 

Chanyeol asked him to spend the night on a Saturday in June. It was almost summertime again: it was getting too warm and Baekhyun was getting too lazy. He drank hot coffee in the afternoons and went to sleep before it was dark outside. When he wasn’t on his ass he was going on breakfast and lunch and dinner and coffee dates with Chanyeol, or guiding Kyungsoo through his relationship, or beating up Jongdae for stupid practical pranks. Personally, he felt productive. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“My parents think we’re dating.”

It was so sudden and unexpected that Baekhyun could have laughed aloud. They were lying on Chanyeol’s bed. He rolled onto his back to see him from the corner of an eye. “Okay.”

The room was cool, maybe even a little too cold. 

“It’s weird,” Chanyeol said after a moment. “Like, I don’t blame them. Look at us.”

They occupied their own sides of the bed but Chanyeol’s fingers traced cute little doodles of imaginary flowers and clouds into Baekhyun’s arm, and their legs overlapped. It was always that way. Baekhyun hadn’t even noticed.

“It came out of nowhere,” Chanyeol said, “but, I kept thinking about it after they said it.”

“Oh.” Baekhyun sat up a little bit. His fingers lingered on the denim of Chanyeol’s jeans, where his knee was. “Why are you telling me?”

Chanyeol shrugged. He had a frown. “I just thought I should.”

“Oh.”

Chanyeol’s hand stayed on his arm but he said, “Do you think we should hang out less?”

The room was quiet for one second, two seconds, five seconds. Baekhyun straightened up. “What? Why?”

“Because. My parents.”

“Think we’re dating? So? We aren’t. Why do you care what they think?”

“Well first of all, they’re my parents.”

“First of all, I’m your best friend," Baekhyun corrected. He sounded angry. He felt angry.

“But I don’t want them to have the wrong idea.”

“You don’t want them thinking we’re a thing?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m your best friend,” Baekhyun repeated.

“Well maybe you should hang out with other friends,” Chanyeol snapped.

“So you don’t want me around?”

“I never said that.”

“You did.”

“Stop being so selfish.”

“ _ I’m  _ the selfish one now?”

“Calm the fuck down, Baekhyun.”

“How can you tell me to calm the fuck down when you’re turning this on me? You can’t push me out of your life because your parents have their noses up your ass. And then telling me to find other friends? You’re the one with too many friends to begin with,  _ you _ go find new ones.”

Chanyeol laughed in his face, probably at his pettiness, because it  _ was  _ petty. “Oh. So first you’re gonna be selfish over our relationship, and now you’re jealous? Jealous that I’m the one with the capability to actually make new friends? Yeah, maybe I don’t want you around. Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m not fucking jealous, don’t pull this shit on me.”

“You’re jealous because you know I could replace your pretty little face in a moment if I wanted.”

The words buzzed in Baekhyun’s head. They were on their feet now, Chanyeol hovered over him, and a crazy burning itch inside Baekhyun brought that sick feeling back and made him want to pull Chanyeol down by the neck and kiss him with every ounce of his stifled anger and feeling ready to burst; kiss him until his lips bruised and he couldn’t breathe. It was a different kind of want, but it burned the same.

He, didn’t. Instead, he slapped Chanyeol. Right across the face.

It felt stupid and girly and pathetic but he coudn’t care then.

Baekhyun didn’t spend the night. Instead he left Chanyeol standing there dumbly in the middle of his bedroom without a word.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Suddenly, Baekhyun was sleeping at Kyungsoo’s house every night and lounging around his house all day doing nothing because he had nothing better to do and because he really didn’t want to see Chanyeol. Suddenly, he was angry and couldn’t move past it.

Chanyeol called on Sunday, a day later. Baekhyun didn’t pick up.

He spent some time down at the skate park again and all at once he was back in 10th grade, moping around because he didn’t want to apologise to Chanyeol and because Chanyeol had a stupid girlfriend instead of him. 

He knew he was partly to blame for things this time. He tried a million different ways in his head to apologise but he quickly discarded all of them because they didn’t sound right and he had never really been very good with apologies in the first place.

Chanyeol called again on Monday. And again, and again, and again. Every call was ignored. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Do you want to go see a movie?” Kyungsoo asked on Tuesday. “It’ll cheer you up.”

_ It won’t,  _ Baekhyun thought bitterly. He agreed.

As it turned out, the movie was too long and too boring, and the plot had too many holes, meaning Baekhyun had too many complaints. He couldn’t even remember the title by the end of it. On any other day he would have loved it, but sitting there on that particular one in the darkness of the theatre, all he could think about was Chanyeol.

Baekhyun was, angry. He was angry for fighting with Chanyeol, he was angry for overreacting. He was mostly angry at himself for the way he felt towards Chanyeol. He wasn’t even angry  _ at _ Chanyeol anymore, though he wouldn’t admit that. He just wanted to move on. 

He went home that night and fell asleep on Kyungsoo’s sofa. 

When they were younger, Baekhyun and Chanyeol had fought over a silly girl and it lasted a week. This time they were fighting over their friendship, and Baekhyun had a feeling it would last a lot longer.

  
  
  
  
  
  


It, didn’t. Surprisingly.

Chanyeol showed up at Kyungsoo’s door the following night. It had been less than a week. Progress.

“Let’s talk,” he told Baekhyun and dragged him out the door.

There were no flowers or notes or traditional clich é apology items. Not even paper airplanes. Just Chanyeol, him and Chanyeol, the way Baekhyun preferred it.

And they did talk, for a long time as the sun was setting and had finally disappeared behind treelines. Chanyeol apologised for things he had said, for things he had done.

“I’m sorry I was so caught up in my own worries and feelings that I disregarded yours. I’m sorry for saying those things. I didn’t mean a single one, you know.”

Baekhyun knew. 

“For the record, nobody could replace your pretty face.” Chanyeol gave him a smile.

Baekhyun’s insides burned. He was so tired of being in love.

“I’m sorry for getting mad,” he said. It was all he could say. It felt cold and lacking in the thin night air compared to Chanyeol’s apology. 

“You don’t have to apologise,” Chanyeol told him. 

They didn’t go home yet. They walked along the bridge near the lake beneath the stars and sat by the bank, the sort of dreamy shit that Baekhyun liked. 

The starlight must have loved Chanyeol, the way it wrote itself across his skin and gave depth to his face. It was really not very fair. 

“Have you ever been skinny dipping?” Chanyeol asked out of the darkness.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The water was, very cold. But the darkness offered concealment as Baekhyun immersed himself in it, helping to lessen the vulnerability that lingered in his head. 

"Don't be shy," Chanyeol told him.

"I'm not. I'm cold."

Chanyeol's silhouette was already out far from the bank. Cool water swirled around Baekhyun's legs and he felt like he was floating on air.

"C'mon, slowass."

The air was quiet except for the sounds of their movement and the hush of the water and the occasional wet thrash from Chanyeol.

“Stop splashing me.” 

“No.” Chanyeol splashed again.

“Seriously,” Baekhyun whined. “I’m already wet enough.” He splashed water back in Chanyeol’s direction. Chanyeol spit a mouthful of water at him. He looked so beautiful in the night sky with his skin glistening and his hair dripping, Baekhyun just wanted to touch him to make sure he was real. He was staring.

“C’mhere.” 

Baekhyun made his way slow, careful. The gentle lull of water enveloped his skin.

Chanyeol caught him by the waist. Baekhyun could feel the ripples from his legs through the water, moving to keep them afloat.

And the fourth time it happened was right there, in the water with Chanyeol’s hands on his skin and his wet hair and skin glistening and tempting. Baekhyun’s heart was in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol said.

Baekhyun pushed a handful of the wet hair out of his face and kissed him.

There was not a single firework or butterfly, just Baekhyun melting into the moment and Chanyeol with him. The water was warm.

Chanyeol stopped kissing him to push him under the water. When he came up gasping Chanyeol laughed and kissed him again, lips and hair and skin dripping wet.

“Is this okay?” Baekhyun asked him.

“I don’t know,” Chanyeol said. “I love you, is that okay?” 

Baekhyun just kissed him once more. It felt good, and he thought, nothing could feel better.

Until Chanyeol dragged him back to his own house that night and showed him just how good he could make him feel.

Baekhyun was, well, enraptured. And for once, it felt okay.

  
  
  
  
  
  


end.

  
  
  
  
  
  


(( thursday

**11:21**

**ksoo:** you never came back home last night

**ksoo:** i’m assuming that means you’re okay now

**11:50**

**ksoo:** baekhyun

  
  
  
  
  
  


monday

**9:42**

**loey** _baek_

**loey:** _ where are youu _

**loey:** _ i’m high and hungry and horny _

**10:01**

**loey:** _ baekkk _

**10:01**

**baekhyun:** _ stfu i know you aren’t possibly high _

**10:02**

**loey:** _ i’m hungry and horny _

**10:02**

**baekhyun:** _ i can pick something up _

**baekhyun:** _ what do u want to eat? _

**10:02**

**loey:** _ honry _

**loey:** _ i’m horny _

**10:07**

**baekhyun:** _ morning sex? _

**10:07**

**loey:** _ babe _

**10:07**

**baekhyun:** _ i thought you were hungry? _

**10:07**

**loey:** _ i am (;; _

**loey:** _ hurry _

**10:07**

**baekhyun:** _ be there in 5 _

  
  
  
  
  
  


friday

**soo:** jongin broke up with me again ))

  
  
  



End file.
